Shenzhen — Guangdong metropolis and Special Economic Zone

Location

The boomtown Shenzhen is located in the south of Guangdong province on the Pearl River. The city area covers a size of 1991 km². It is separated from Hong Kong by the Sham-Chun and Sha-Tau-Kok rivers.

Shenzhen is located about 100 km southeast of the provincial capital Guangzhou, 60 km south of the industrial city of Dongguan, 60 km northeast of Zhuhai and 65 km northeast of Macau.

Development

Shenzhen was originally a hilly area with fertile farmland. However, after the introduction of the Special Economic Zone, there were profound changes to the landscape. Most of the formerly hilly fishing village was leveled and somewhat raised for the urban area. Viewed from satellite, only Lotus Hill, Mount Bijia and Mount Wutong are still visible as elevations in the city. Due to the ongoing construction boom in the city, the Mission Hills area is also partially leveled to make it usable. In addition, polders are being created along the numerous bays to wring more cultivable land from the sea.

Administrative structure

The sub-provincial city of Shenzhen is composed of ten urban districts (区 Qū) at the county level. Four of these municipalities are newly established, so-called "functional municipalities" (功能区), which were summarily named "new municipalities" (新区). The "old" boroughs are first-degree administrative divisions, i.e., they have both houses of parliament, (People's Congress and Consultative Conference), as well as a people's government (人民政府) elected by the borough's People's Congress. Functional city districts, on the other hand, are second-degree administrative divisions, namely "city middle authorities", i.e., they have no people's congresses, no consultative conferences and, most importantly, no people's governments. Their administration is directly determined and appointed by the city of Shenzhen.

¹ Census 2010.

¹ Guangming was established on 31 May 2007, Pingshan on 30 June 2009, Dapeng on 27 October 2011 and Longhua on 30 December 2011.

The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) was expanded on 1 July 2010 to include the two districts of Bao'an and Longgang, and has since covered the entire city area. The traditional financial and commercial centre is located in the Luohu district, which is adjacent to Hong Kong. Futian, the district where the municipal government is located and which has become the new financial and commercial center of the city in the past decade, is located in the heart of the SEZ. Nanshan Municipality, in the west of the SEZ, is home to high-tech industries. The Yantian Municipality is the hub for Shenzhen's logistics activities.

Ethnic breakdown of the population (2000)

In the 2000 census, Shenzhen had a population of 7,008,831.

Population development

The Shenzhen agglomeration grew from a population of about 3,000 in 1950 to over 11 million in 2017. A United Nations report names Shenzhen as the fastest growing city in human history from 1980 to 2010.

The population is expected to increase further to over 15 million in the agglomeration by 2035. Shenzhen is part of the Pearl River Delta agglomeration with over 45 million inhabitants.

Climate

Shenzhen has an average annual temperature of 22.4 °C and an annual rainfall of 1933 mm. The climate can be described as subtropical maritime climate. In spring and autumn, the frequent occurrence of tropical cyclones (typhoons) is to be expected.

The name of the city

The name of the city first appeared during the Ming Dynasty in 1410. At that time, the area was crisscrossed by countless rivers and streams that served to drain the rice fields. People referred to these drainage ditches as "zhèn (圳)". "Shēn (深)" means "deep."

Shēnzhèn in Chinese writing

can thus be roughly translated as "deep drainage ditches".

The period before the establishment of the special economic zone

Originally, Bao'an County (宝安县) was located in the area of the present city, the center of which was a city of only 30,000 people on the border with Hong Kong until 1979. In March 1979, the central government, together with the Guangdong provincial government, decided to make the county a city named Shenzhen. In November of the same year, Shenzhen was granted city rights and thus became directly under the provincial government.

Establishment and expansion of the special economic zone

Shenzhen is located on the Pearl River Delta and on the border with the Chinese Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong. This favourable location was the reason why China's first special economic zone was formed in Shenzhen under Deng Xiaoping in May 1980, partly to benefit from Hong Kong's economic development. Deng's slogan in connection with the city of Shenzhen was "Let the west wind in. Wealth is glorious." This very aptly described what was to happen in the city in the coming years, an extreme building boom rarely seen even in China.

Shenzhen developed next to and today already beyond Guangzhou to become the largest city in the Pearl River Delta, which is seen as one of China's most economically important regions alongside the Beijing-Tianjin area and the Yangtze River Delta. With many manufacturing companies operating throughout Guangdong Province, the region was the first to be readily referred to in the media as the "workbench of the world".

By 2009, the special economic zone had reached a size of 396 square kilometers, already exceeding the original plans from 1980 many times over. In 2009, the municipal government drew up a plan for renewed expansion, which was confirmed by China's State Council. According to this plan, the Bao'an and Longgang districts were included in the special economic zone as of July 1, 2010, increasing its size fivefold to 1,953 square kilometers.

Landslide in 2015

On December 20, 2015, a massive mudslide of soil and debris detached from a man-made mountain about 100 meters high in Shenzhen's New Guangming industrial park after persistent rainfall. The debris covered an area of 380,000 square meters. Since then, 85 people have been missing; 14 factories with workers' residential areas lie under the quagmire. Of the city's deployed eleven firefighting units, supported by 151 excavators, one person was rescued alive from the mudslide on December 23, 2015.

Covid 19 pandemic in 2020

In the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, the city banned the consumption of dogs and cats. Officially, the ban is justified with the "spirit of human civilization". Previously, the consumption of wild animals had already been banned throughout China because of the origin of the coronavirus.